Land deals, and how not all states react the same: Zambia and the Chinese request

ABSTRACT

The global land rush has drawn new attention to the African state. Governments have generally been accused of brokering deals that are assumed to negatively affect local people. This framing contributes to an image that all states react in the same way, ignoring that states and customary rulers still covet control over land. By drawing on a Chinese land request for 2 million hectares in Zambia, the article argues that processes of land acquisition are deeply influenced by the shifting politics and policies within the respective country, specifically since a change of government changed the dynamics of the deal.

RÉSUMÉ

La ruée mondiale vers les terres a attiré une attention nouvelle sur les Etats africains. Les gouvernements ont généralement été accusés de négocier des accords supposés affecter négativement les populations locales. Cette caractérisation contribue à la perception selon laquelle tous les Etats réagissent de manière uniforme, ignorant le fait que les Etats et les dirigeants coutumiers aspirent toujours au contrôle de la terre. En s'appuyant sur une requête foncière chinoise pour deux millions d'hectares en Zambie, l'article affirme que les processus d'acquisition de terres sont profondément influencés par l’évolution de la scène politique et des mesures publiques dans le pays concerné, en particulier depuis qu'un changement de gouvernement a modifié la dynamique de la transaction.

KEYWORDS:

• Land grab
• authority
• state
• traditional leaders
• Zambia
• China

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Acquisition de terrain
• autorité
• Etat
• chefs traditionnels
• Zambie
• Chine

Acknowledgements

I am sincerely grateful to the interviewees for their input and to the three anonymous reviewers for their invaluable assistance in the writing of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Marie Widengård achieved her PhD through research in environmental social science, and is interested in trans-scalar relations across the North and South.

Notes

1 ‘Land alienation' is commonly used as shorthand for the complex processes involved in acquiring land from customary landowners by the government: see Bluwstein et al. (2018) for an illustrative case study from Tanzania.